Two articles of interest in today's LA Times.
In a news story regarding Hamas' belief that the change in government in Egypt will bring new opportunities there is mention of the organization's own difficulties with public unrest in Gaza.
LA Times
Like other authoritative Arab governments, Hamas itself is vulnerable to public unrest. A new Facebook campaign, with several thousand followers, is encouraging Gazans to demonstrate against Palestinian leaders in Gaza and the West Bank, though so far protests have been small and easily broken up by authorities.
Five years after winning Palestinian elections, polls now show Hamas' popularity waning as people bristle over attempts to silence dissent and impose stricter religious laws. Political opponents and journalists are frequently detained or attacked.
...
"Hamas acts as a kind of dictatorship, as another kind of occupation," said Gaza activist Asmaa Alghoul, who said she was arrested and beaten with several other protesters as they attempted to demonstrate their support for Egypt's revolution last month. Alghoul has clashed with Hamas authorities over her blog criticisms and defiant behavior. In 2009 she was arrested for "inappropriate laughter" as she walked with a group of friends on the beach, including some young men who were not her relatives.
"We need to free ourselves as human beings before we can free our land from occupation," said Alghoul, 29, wearing a rust-colored vinyl jacket and no covering over her short, wavy hair. "Do you expect a woman whose husband beats her daily and takes her salary to then fight against occupation?"
While Hamas as an occupier of the Palestinian people is a relatively new framing, Hamas as dictatorship squelching dissent against political opponents does have a kind of familiar ring to it.
And there is also an opinion piece by Rabbi Marvin Hier on the op-ed page today detailing the year's worst anti-semitic slurs as noted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
As he notes, there were no shortage of candidates for this list of shame. The hate that was highlighted in this year's list came from, a journalist, a historian, and a banker among others.
Here are the low-lights....
First on the list is Helen Thomas' opinion on where Jews should and should not reside.
"Jews should get the hell out of Palestine. They should go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.... Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street are owned by Zionists."
Next up is Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
"Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred.… Even after the massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world."
Another government leader exposed themselves when deputy minister of information for the Palestinian Authority, Mutawakil Taha said
"The Jews have no historical or religious ties to the Temple Mount or the Western Wall. There is no archeological evidence that the Temple Mount was built during the period of King Solomon." Contrast this to what the Supreme Muslim Council said about the very same site in its 1924-53 official guide to Jerusalem: "Its sanctity [Dome of the Rock] dates from the earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute."
And last but certainly not least we have a "historian" perpetuating the anti-semitic meme of holocaust denial.
"The [Nuremberg Trial] was the biggest legal farce in history … the legend about 6 million supposedly murdered Jews acquired a legal basis, even though the court did not have a single document signed by A. Hitler concerning the extermination of Jews." Historian Petras Stankeras, who worked for Lithuania's Interior Ministry, wrote those words in a column for a popular Lithuanian newsmagazine.
The battle against anti-semitism never seems to have a lull, something which one can easily see even here on this site. Those that practice this behavior should be criticized and called to account where ever and whenever it occurs.